This Is The Most Fantastic Story You've Ever Heard (J2 AU, PG-13)
Title: This Is The Most Fantastic Story You've Ever Heard
Pairing: J2
Genre: AU.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Words: ~4,000
Warnings: General ridiculousness.
Disclaimer: TOTALLY NOT TRUE IN ANY WAY.
A/N: MAJOR thanks go out to moragmacpherson for doing a truly awesome beta. ♥ Also, thank you to selecasharp (who read J2 for me!) and pixymisa for the extra sets of eyes and cheerleading.
The title, which should definitely be read ironically, is taken from the cinematic masterpiece Plan Nine From Outer Space.
This fic was written for the j2fightscrime challenge.
It’s nine o’clock in the morning. The sunlight slants through the window, illuminating the dust particles in the air and giving the entire room a faint yellow glow. For just a moment, Jensen can pretend that the house is a normal house.
A loud creak echoes through the house and okay, never mind. Fucking house.
At nine-oh-two, his administrative assistant buzzes him. “Someone to see you.” Tracy sounds mildly surprised. It’s the first time since he hired her that Jensen has heard anything but complete boredom in her voice.
“Man or woman?”
“Man,” Tracy says.
“Tall or short?”
“Tall.”
“Does he look dangerous?”
“No.”
Jensen frets. The ones who look innocent invariably turn out to be mad, bad, and dangerous for Jensen to know.
Although, to be fair, so do the ones who look like bad guys.
“Send him in, Tracy,” Jensen says.
The man who enters will no doubt be trouble and is probably out to get Jensen (since most people are, it’s an easy assumption to make) but just for a moment, Jensen cannot stop himself from taking a moment to appreciate his physical appearance, which is most excellent.
He also doesn’t look dangerous in the slightest, despite the fact that he’s absolutely enormous.
“Mr. Ackles?” the guy asks. Although he’s extremely attractive, built, and tanned, the good looks don’t hide that he looks stressed and maybe a bit ill. Jensen feels a most uncharacteristic desire to sooth him.
“Jensen,” he corrects. “Who are you?”
“Jared Padalecki. I need you to find the guy who poisoned me before I die.”
Jensen stares for a moment. “What?”
“Someone poisoned me yesterday and I need to find the antidote!” Jared slams his right palm against the wall in evident frustration. “By the way, this house is amazing. Did you have to add on the office, or was it part of the original plan?”
“This house is ruining my life,” Jensen says morosely, not wanting to talk about it. “Tell me about the poison. Why do you think you’ve been poisoned?”
“I know I’ve been poisoned because I was perfectly healthy until some guy stabbed me with a hypodermic needle yesterday. I went to the hospital last night and now the doctors say I've got a week to live. That's just an estimate based on how quickly my vitals are deteriorating, however, because none of their very expensive tests has identified which poison he used." He paused. "Also, the poisoner called me and told me what he'd done."
“Are the police involved?”
“Sure,” Jared says. “But I don’t trust them. I want to hire someone myself.”
Jensen’s pretty sure that the police bug his phone, so he finds that perfectly reasonable. He nods.
“Does an antidote even exist?”
“Apparently, yes, that's what he said on the phone. He says he’ll give it to me if I sign a contract to produce his screenplay.” He rolls his eyes.
Jensen scratches his head.
“His screenplay?”
“Yeah,” Jared says, like all of this makes sense. “I’m a filmmaker, a producer. If I agree to produce his screenplay and don’t press charges, I get to live.”
“Is it any good?” Jensen asks, curiously.
“It’s a sequel to Plan Nine From Outer Space.”
“This abomination cannot be unleashed onto the world,” Jensen announces. “I’ll take your case.”
::
Jensen figures there’s really only one thing to do: find the guy who poisoned Jared and snag the antidote. Unfortunately, since Jared didn’t see the guy who poisoned him, there isn’t much to work with.
“Did you get his name?” he asks.
“Well, there was a name on the script he gave me, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t his real name,” Jared tells him.
Jensen nods approvingly. A fake name, just what he would do. You never know who might come after you. “What was it?”
“Ed Wood III,” Jared says glumly.
“Yeah, probably a fake name,” Jensen agrees.
“You think?” Jared says sarcastically. Hmm, sarcasm. Jensen likes that in a man.
“Do you have the script?” he asks.
Jared shuffles around the leather man-purse he’s got slung over his shoulder for a moment before digging out the script and dropping it on Jensen’s desk.
“It was in my mailbox when I got home yesterday,” Jared adds. “The police dusted it for fingerprints, but it’ll be awhile before they have any results.”
Jensen picks it up and starts thumbing through the pages.
“No, doctor don’t let the aliens have my baby,” he reads in a monotone. “Cut to giant squid attack.” He looks up at Jared. “Aliens and giant squid in the same movie? That seems like…a lot.”
“I told him he should try Syfy,” Jared says with a shrug. “But he said that he wants a major motion picture with nationwide release - or I would die.”
Jensen flips through the script. He’s not an expert, but even he can tell that it’s pretty dismal. No one as pretty as Jared should ever be involved in something like this.
A mark in the margins caught his attention and he flipped back to it. The note, hastily jotted down in blue ballpoint ink, is better written than anything typed in the script.
“Wednesday, 10:30, Marietta’s,” Jensen reads aloud, causing Jared, has been pacing around the room, to stop and look up in surprise. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“Marietta’s is a bookstore downtown, I was there yesterday. I left at about eleven and that's when he poisoned me, right as I walked out their door.” He pauses. “I didn’t realize what it was immediately, you know. I felt a sharp pain in my arm, but when I touched it, there was nothing there. I looked around, didn’t see anyone nearby. It wasn’t until I got the call last night that I even realized I’d been poisoned. I went to the hospital and…yeah, they confirmed it.” He pauses, and adds in a somber tone: “Since then, the visible symptoms have progressed rapidly.”
“So do you go to Marietta’s often? Or did anyone else know you were going to be there on that day?”
Jared shakes him head. “Um, my friend Sandy works there, and I stop in to visit her every once in awhile, but not on a regular schedule or anything.”
“But you knew Sandy was going to be there on Wednesday? Does she always work Wednesdays?”
“No, I had…I had called her the night before to say hi, and she told me they had a new book in on film history that she thought I’d like. So I said I would drop in the next morning, and she told me she wasn’t going to be in until 10.”
“Where were you when you had this conversation?” Jensen asks. He feels a buzz of excitement, like they’re on the verge of making a breakthrough and cracking the puzzle. This bubbling exhilaration is why he became a detective in the first place, and despite Jared’s predicament, he can’t help grinning. Jared smiles back, and geez, he has these dimples.
Bad Jensen, bad. No distractions allowed.
“I was at home,” Jared says.
“Oh.” Jensen frowns. “Where was Sandy, then?”
“I’m not sure…” He looks at the ceiling for a moment, lost in though. “I think she was shopping somewhere? She was definitely on her cell phone.”
::
“I was actually here,” Sandy says. “It was my day off, but I’d forgotten a book that I’d bought for my boyfriend, so I came back to get it.”
Jensen stares at her for a moment, watching her face for signs of lying. But she seems to be telling the truth; he’s pretty good at spotting tells. Sometimes it helps to be sure that everyone’s lying to you.
“So the person who poisoned me overheard you talking to me on the phone…here?” Jared asks.
Jensen doesn’t usually allow his clients to accompany him when he’s doing his detective thing. Okay, he never allows them to. Of course, it usually doesn’t come up, since they have other things going on in their lives, which is why they’ve hired him. But Jared had been insistent, saying that he had to help out as much as he can. Jensen had considered telling him he’d only get in the way, but couldn’t bring himself to. For some reason. Which has everything to do with Jared’s impatience, and nothing to do with how hot he is. Jensen’s a professional, after all.
Sandy just shrugs, but Jensen nods with certainty. “That is exactly what happened.” He glances around the bookstore, taking in the couple kneeling by the travel section, the elderly woman browsing the new paperback novels, the young man leading a dog on a leash examining the titles in the gardening section. None of them looks particularly threatening, but Jensen knows better.
Anyone can be dangerous.
A slender dark-haired man approaches them. “What’s going on?” he asks. He’s wearing an employee pin on his blue t-shirt.
“Aaron!” Sandy says. “Someone attacked Jared last time he was here!”
Aaron looks Jared up and down. “He was attacked? He looks okay to me,” he says, doubtfully.
“I was poisoned,” Jared tells him. “Were you here yesterday morning?” Jensen looks over approvingly at Jared. His interrogation technique is simple and direct. Pretty good. For an amateur.
“Yeah,” Aaron says. “I opened yesterday.”
“Did you see anyone suspicious-looking?” Jensen asks. “Maybe hanging around the door?”
Aaron shrugs. “No, it was a pretty ordinary morning.”
“What about Tuesday evening, were you here then?” Jared asks intently. Aaron, who barely reaches Jared’s shoulders, shifts nervously.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Jensen asks, stepping forward, putting himself into Aaron’s space.
“No! I mean, yes, I’m sure! Who are you, anyway? Are you the police?”
Jensen doesn’t answer, just glares down at the kid. He likes it when he makes people nervous. It’s like he’s getting even with the world, just a little bit.
“Well, Mario was here,” Aaron blurts out. “He’s here a lot, so it’s not weird, but he is. Weird, I mean.”
“Like, plays-Dungeons-and-Dragons weird, or stab-someone-with-a-hypodermic-needle-filled-with-poison weird?” Jensen asks.
Aaron shrugs. “I don’t know. He just always creeps me out.”
“Do you know where he lives?” Jared asks.
“No. His last name is Gonzalez, I know that.”
Jared gives Aaron one final glare before taking a step back. “Okay, man,” he says. “Thanks. Bye, Sandy. Come on, Jensen.” He takes hold of Jensen’s left arm and tugs him out of the store.
Outside, Jared holds onto Jensen’s arm a little longer than Jensen thinks is strictly necessary. He watches Jared.
“You sure you even need me, man?” he asks.
Jared looks surprised. “What are you even talking about?”
“You seem to have a good handle on the situation.”
“You’re in charge, dude,” Jared says, raising his hand in protest. “Obviously this is really important to me, so I want to know these things. But I’m trusting you to make sure we’re on the right track.”
Despite the gravity of the situation and his own natural proclivities, Jensen finds himself flashing Jared a grin.
::
There are five Mario Gonzalezes in the city directory, and it doesn’t take long to find the one they’re looking for. He’s the one with the original Star Trek theme playing on his answering machine, which they listen to together on Jared’s cell’s speaker while Jared drives his Jeep slowly out of the parking lot. “Mario is boldly going where no man has gone before!” the message says in a dramatic voice. “He will get back to you at the end of his five year mission. Or whenever he comes home, whichever is first.”
Jensen takes the phone from Jared’s hand and starts to leave a message. “My name is Jensen Ackles and I’m a private detective working for Jared Padalecki. Could Mario Gonzalez please call me back as soon as possible at-“
“HELLO?” comes a loud voice over the speaker. “I’m here! I’m here! This is Mario!”
“Hi Mario,” Jensen says. “If you’re at home, we’re coming over right now. We need to speak to you.”
There’s a brief pause.
“…Okay,” comes the eventual response. He doesn’t sound particularly eager.
Jensen looks up directions to Mario’s address, and navigates Jared there. It turns out to be a small bungalow that could use a fresh coat of paint. The sad weedy lawn wouldn’t be much improved by mowing.
The inside, however, is tidy enough. The walls are covered in posters for Star Wars, Star Trek, and various anime with Japanese writing. Jensen spots a particularly interesting poster on the kitchen wall:
“What do you want?” Mario asks, letting them in but leaving the door open. He’s a tall skinny guy, with black curls that reach his shoulders. He sounds like he’s trying to be tough, but it’s not working very well.
“You know a guy named Aaron? At Marietta’s Books? He told us you said you were hanging around the store yesterday,” Jensen says casually.
“Yeah, Aaron, sure. The bookseller.” Mario looks a little confused.
“You a fan of Ed Wood, Mario?” Jared asks. Mario looks up, surprised, but before he can answer, Jared's phone rings.
“Sorry, Jen, gotta take this. Business is business.” He wanders outside to answer the phone.
Jensen gestures to the poster. “Tell me about Plan Nine,” he says.
“Um,” Mario clears his throat and faces Jensen. “Yeah, it’s cool, right? I mean, it’s terrible, but in a totally amazing way? Actually, that guy Aaron? He freaking loves that movie. He told me he wants to name his future son Ed Wood.”
“Really,” Jensen says flatly.
“He’s like, obsessed with Ed Wood,” Mario continues. “It verges on…scary. He’s told me that he even has an idea for a sequel to Plan Nine, can you believe it?”
::
It turns out that the call was actually from the police. They got a couple of good fingerprints off the script but they don’t match anything in any databases that the police can access.
So Jensen puts in a call to a friend at the FBI.
“Jensen, I’m in the middle of a case right now, so I can’t get to it right now, but I will when I have time. What are the names again?”
“Mario Gonzalez, 2390 W. Montrose, and Aaron Davis, uh…Jared, what was Aaron’s address?”
“5632 N. Wolcott, #4,” Jared reads off a scrap of paper.
“Who’s Jared? You got a partner now?”
“He’s my client, Danneel.”
“You’re letting your client work with you?” She sounds doubtful.
“Thanks a lot for your help, Danneel,” he says. “I’ll talk to you later! Bye!” He ends the call before she can say anything else, and looks up to see Jared watching him, amused.
“Back to Marietta’s?” Jensen asks.
“You’re the boss…partner,” Jared says. He coughs once. And then again. And again. And then he’s coughing uncontrollably, doubled over, his hand over his mouth.
“Jesus, Jared, are you okay?” Jensen’s first instinct is to move toward Jared, but he resists the temptation.
Jared nods, and coughs a couple more times. He stands up, and holds up his palm so Jensen can see. It’s splattered with blood.
“I’m gonna go home,” Jared says. He looks pale and tired. “I’ll drop you off.”
“Okay,” Jensen nods. “See you in the morning?” He feels himself flush at the hopeful tone of his own voice.
“Yeah. In the morning.”
::
Early on Friday they meet up and head back to Marietta’s. Jared is looking better than he had the previous afternoon, but Jensen can see that his spirits are flagging.
“I swear it wasn’t me!” Aaron says before Jensen barely opens his mouth. His yelp attracts the attention of an elderly man browsing in the magazine section.
“Where were you on Wednesday morning?” Jensen asks, threateningly.
“School! Class! I swear, I have a lit class on Wednesday mornings! At Truman!”
Jensen shakes a threatening finger in Aaron’s face. “I am going to check this out. And if I find out that you skipped class, you're going to find out how what I do to people who lie to me. Trust me when I say that you really don't want to be one of those people. So I'm going to give you one last chance to tell the truth: were you in class on Wednesday?”
Aaron nods rapidly. “Yes! I was there!” Jensen hates it when the truth is a dead-end, and he thinks that Aaron probably isn’t lying. Still, it never hurts to make sure.
Back in Jared’s car, Jensen whips out his phone to double-check the story.
“What do you think is going on with these guys?” Jared asks him, leaning against the window. “They don’t really seem like criminal masterminds.”
“Well, they’re definitely idiots. That much I know. The rest, we’ll figure out.”
Jared looks like he’s about to say something. Jensen raises an eyebrow at him.
“What?”
“That was totally awesome,” Jared confesses. “The way you threatened Aaron?”
Jensen snorts.
“Yeah, I rock at threatening people. You sure know how to boost a guy’s ego.”
“It was hot is all I’m saying,” Jared says.
Jensen feels his ears burning. He chances a glance over at Jared, who has pasted an innocent expression on his face.
“I try,” he says, attempting to sound nonchalant, and mostly succeeding. Maybe. Okay, probably not.
It takes twenty minutes for Jensen to figure out that there really is a literature class at Truman College on Wednesday mornings, and another twenty minutes to track down the teacher. She doesn’t keep roll, but says she is positive that Aaron was there.
“Hmm,” Jensen says.
“Not Aaron, then,” Jared says. “But he’s the one with the screenplay.”
“Hmm,” Jensen says again. His phone rings. It’s Danneel. He puts her on speaker. “I ran your check,” she says without preamble. “Jensen, neither of these guys has ever done anything criminal or remarkable in any other way. Mario got a parking ticket once.”
“Shit,” he says. “Um, is there anything else? Anything at all could be helpful.”
“Is Jared there? Hi Jared!”
“Hi Danneel,” Jared says, grinning. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Jared. Jensen, he sounds cute.”
“I’m very cute,” Jared tells her.
“And he doesn’t have a self-confidence issue, does he?” Jensen says grumpily. “Stop flirting and tell me about our guys, Danneel.”
“Well, Aaron works in a bookstore. You already knew that. He’s a student at Truman College, and he graduated from high school two years ago. Mario also went to Truman, but never went on to a four-year school. He works as a legal courier. Before that, he worked as a lab assistant, although it looks like he was at the bottom rung, one step above a janitor.”
“What kind of lab are we talking about here?” Jensen asks.
There’s a pause. “Records don't say, give me a second. Okay, it’s called Thompson Research Laboratory. It receives federal funding, so I have access to its database.” Jensen can hear keys clicking. “Ohhh. He was fired when he was caught stealing from the lab.”
Jared’s already pulling out of the parking space.
::
“Don’t you guys need a warrant or something?” Mario says, as Jensen pushes past him to get into the living room.
“We’re not cops,” Jensen tells him. “We’re just trespassing.”
“I’m gonna call the cops!” Mario yells.
“Okay, Mario, go ahead and do that, save me the time,” Jensen says, annoyed.
“What are-“ Mario begins.
“Where is the antidote, Mario?” Jared interrupts in a low voice.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mario’s voice comes out oddly high, and he looks absolutely terrified. Got him, Jensen thinks. But he can’t afford to wait any longer.
“Mario! Where is the fucking antidote?” Jensen yells at him.
“Antidote to what?”
“He-“ Jensen points at Jared “is going to die because you are such a dumbshit. Do you want to be a murderer, Mario?”
“No…” He looks up at Jared with pleading eyes. “Why won’t you just make the movie? Come on, it’s really good!”
“Ah HA!” Jensen says. “The antidote, Mario. NOW.”
“Fine,” Mario says. “Fine! But it was all Aaron’s idea, I hope you know! It was his fucking screenplay in the first place!” He yanks open the freezer door and pulls out a vial. Jared snags it from him.
“And now I’m calling the cops,” he says. He turns to Jensen. “Jen, I’ve got to go to the hospital, make sure this is the real thing.”
“I’ll come with you,” Jensen offers.
Jared shakes his head. “No, man, stay here and wait for the cops, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” Jensen pauses for a moment. “I’ll come see you in the hospital, though?”
Jared grins at him. “You’d better.” And before Jensen can say anything else, Jared leans down and kisses him, a single soft kiss on the lips. Then he turns and then walks out the door.
Jensen stares after him in a daze.
Mario starts laughing and Jensen spins to glares at him.
“Your face, man!” Mario says between wheezes.
“Yeah, laugh it up now, you idiot.” Jensen mutters. “Not gonna be doing too much laughing when the cops show up, are you?” Mario looks chastened, and Jensen settles back to wait.
::
Jared spends the next couple days in the hospital, where, as it turns out, Jensen does not qualify as an acceptable visitor. So he sends Jensen regular emails from his phone about how his treatment is going. Jensen writes emails back about what’s going on with Mario and Aaron. The two of them, it turns out, planned the entire thing out together, but panic set in after Mario carried out the attack.
Good thing they’re as good at crime as they are at screenwriting, Jared texts.
Jensen laughs and before he can stop himself, he texts back I miss you.
Jared’s response is immediate. Soon.
::
It’s been a week and a half since Jensen met Jared, and he’s sitting in his office again. It’s raining, which reflects Jensen’s mood perfectly. Of course, it’s impossible to be cheery in this damned house anyway. He twirls a pen around, tosses it up in the air and catches it.
“So talented.”
The amused voice is coming from the doorway, and Jensen looks up to see Jared leaning there, watching him.
“Didn’t know you were such a creeper,” Jensen says. “Civilized people knock first, you know.”
“It’s good to see you,” Jared tells him.
“You okay now? You’re going to live?”
“Yup, the antidote worked. I’m back at 100%.”
Jensen closes his eyes in relief. “I’m so glad to hear it, man. Mario and Aaron are both living it up in the county jail, by the way.”
When he opens his eyes, Jared’s smiling at him. “Tell me about this house.”
“What about the house?” Jensen asks, confused by the sudden change in topic.
“When I first met you, you said this house was ruining your life. But it’s really an incredible house. The gardens, the gables, the wood paneling. People don’t build houses like this anymore. How is it ruining your life?”
Jensen sighs. “I inherited this house from my aunt,” he says grudgingly. “And…okay, I have some paranoid tendencies? This house just really scares me. It’s huge and it makes lots of noises and I always think there are other people wandering around.”
“Why don’t you just sell it, then?”
“It’s been in my family for a long time. I can’t just sell it. My dad grew up here, his dad grew up here, his mom grew up here…”
“Will you show it to me?” Jared asks.
“You want to see my spooky house, Jared?” Jensen asks.
“Pretty much ever since the first time I saw it. I’m really interested in checking out the basement, maybe taking a look at the plumbing. I hear the pipes need a lot of attention, you know.” Jared says with a leer. Jensen laughs.
“We still talking about the house, dude?”
“You tell me,” Jared says. He’s still smiling, but he looks a little nervous. Jensen gets up and walks toward him. He takes Jared’s hand, and looks at it for a moment before glancing up. Jared’s so close, and it’s no effort at all to lean over and kiss him.
“Let me show you my house, Jared," Jensen says, and his heart is pounding like crazy but he's never felt so fucking happy. "I’ll show you everything.”
Prompt: Jared's a bookish disheveled filmmaker looking for a cure to the poison coursing through his veins. Jensen's a sarcastic paranoid detective who inherited a spooky stately manor from his late maiden aunt.
Pairing: J2
Genre: AU.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Words: ~4,000
Warnings: General ridiculousness.
Disclaimer: TOTALLY NOT TRUE IN ANY WAY.
A/N: MAJOR thanks go out to moragmacpherson for doing a truly awesome beta. ♥ Also, thank you to selecasharp (who read J2 for me!) and pixymisa for the extra sets of eyes and cheerleading.
The title, which should definitely be read ironically, is taken from the cinematic masterpiece Plan Nine From Outer Space.
This fic was written for the j2fightscrime challenge.
It’s nine o’clock in the morning. The sunlight slants through the window, illuminating the dust particles in the air and giving the entire room a faint yellow glow. For just a moment, Jensen can pretend that the house is a normal house.
A loud creak echoes through the house and okay, never mind. Fucking house.
At nine-oh-two, his administrative assistant buzzes him. “Someone to see you.” Tracy sounds mildly surprised. It’s the first time since he hired her that Jensen has heard anything but complete boredom in her voice.
“Man or woman?”
“Man,” Tracy says.
“Tall or short?”
“Tall.”
“Does he look dangerous?”
“No.”
Jensen frets. The ones who look innocent invariably turn out to be mad, bad, and dangerous for Jensen to know.
Although, to be fair, so do the ones who look like bad guys.
“Send him in, Tracy,” Jensen says.
The man who enters will no doubt be trouble and is probably out to get Jensen (since most people are, it’s an easy assumption to make) but just for a moment, Jensen cannot stop himself from taking a moment to appreciate his physical appearance, which is most excellent.
He also doesn’t look dangerous in the slightest, despite the fact that he’s absolutely enormous.
“Mr. Ackles?” the guy asks. Although he’s extremely attractive, built, and tanned, the good looks don’t hide that he looks stressed and maybe a bit ill. Jensen feels a most uncharacteristic desire to sooth him.
“Jensen,” he corrects. “Who are you?”
“Jared Padalecki. I need you to find the guy who poisoned me before I die.”
Jensen stares for a moment. “What?”
“Someone poisoned me yesterday and I need to find the antidote!” Jared slams his right palm against the wall in evident frustration. “By the way, this house is amazing. Did you have to add on the office, or was it part of the original plan?”
“This house is ruining my life,” Jensen says morosely, not wanting to talk about it. “Tell me about the poison. Why do you think you’ve been poisoned?”
“I know I’ve been poisoned because I was perfectly healthy until some guy stabbed me with a hypodermic needle yesterday. I went to the hospital last night and now the doctors say I've got a week to live. That's just an estimate based on how quickly my vitals are deteriorating, however, because none of their very expensive tests has identified which poison he used." He paused. "Also, the poisoner called me and told me what he'd done."
“Are the police involved?”
“Sure,” Jared says. “But I don’t trust them. I want to hire someone myself.”
Jensen’s pretty sure that the police bug his phone, so he finds that perfectly reasonable. He nods.
“Does an antidote even exist?”
“Apparently, yes, that's what he said on the phone. He says he’ll give it to me if I sign a contract to produce his screenplay.” He rolls his eyes.
Jensen scratches his head.
“His screenplay?”
“Yeah,” Jared says, like all of this makes sense. “I’m a filmmaker, a producer. If I agree to produce his screenplay and don’t press charges, I get to live.”
“Is it any good?” Jensen asks, curiously.
“It’s a sequel to Plan Nine From Outer Space.”
“This abomination cannot be unleashed onto the world,” Jensen announces. “I’ll take your case.”
::
Jensen figures there’s really only one thing to do: find the guy who poisoned Jared and snag the antidote. Unfortunately, since Jared didn’t see the guy who poisoned him, there isn’t much to work with.
“Did you get his name?” he asks.
“Well, there was a name on the script he gave me, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t his real name,” Jared tells him.
Jensen nods approvingly. A fake name, just what he would do. You never know who might come after you. “What was it?”
“Ed Wood III,” Jared says glumly.
“Yeah, probably a fake name,” Jensen agrees.
“You think?” Jared says sarcastically. Hmm, sarcasm. Jensen likes that in a man.
“Do you have the script?” he asks.
Jared shuffles around the leather man-purse he’s got slung over his shoulder for a moment before digging out the script and dropping it on Jensen’s desk.
“It was in my mailbox when I got home yesterday,” Jared adds. “The police dusted it for fingerprints, but it’ll be awhile before they have any results.”
Jensen picks it up and starts thumbing through the pages.
“No, doctor don’t let the aliens have my baby,” he reads in a monotone. “Cut to giant squid attack.” He looks up at Jared. “Aliens and giant squid in the same movie? That seems like…a lot.”
“I told him he should try Syfy,” Jared says with a shrug. “But he said that he wants a major motion picture with nationwide release - or I would die.”
Jensen flips through the script. He’s not an expert, but even he can tell that it’s pretty dismal. No one as pretty as Jared should ever be involved in something like this.
A mark in the margins caught his attention and he flipped back to it. The note, hastily jotted down in blue ballpoint ink, is better written than anything typed in the script.
“Wednesday, 10:30, Marietta’s,” Jensen reads aloud, causing Jared, has been pacing around the room, to stop and look up in surprise. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“Marietta’s is a bookstore downtown, I was there yesterday. I left at about eleven and that's when he poisoned me, right as I walked out their door.” He pauses. “I didn’t realize what it was immediately, you know. I felt a sharp pain in my arm, but when I touched it, there was nothing there. I looked around, didn’t see anyone nearby. It wasn’t until I got the call last night that I even realized I’d been poisoned. I went to the hospital and…yeah, they confirmed it.” He pauses, and adds in a somber tone: “Since then, the visible symptoms have progressed rapidly.”
“So do you go to Marietta’s often? Or did anyone else know you were going to be there on that day?”
Jared shakes him head. “Um, my friend Sandy works there, and I stop in to visit her every once in awhile, but not on a regular schedule or anything.”
“But you knew Sandy was going to be there on Wednesday? Does she always work Wednesdays?”
“No, I had…I had called her the night before to say hi, and she told me they had a new book in on film history that she thought I’d like. So I said I would drop in the next morning, and she told me she wasn’t going to be in until 10.”
“Where were you when you had this conversation?” Jensen asks. He feels a buzz of excitement, like they’re on the verge of making a breakthrough and cracking the puzzle. This bubbling exhilaration is why he became a detective in the first place, and despite Jared’s predicament, he can’t help grinning. Jared smiles back, and geez, he has these dimples.
Bad Jensen, bad. No distractions allowed.
“I was at home,” Jared says.
“Oh.” Jensen frowns. “Where was Sandy, then?”
“I’m not sure…” He looks at the ceiling for a moment, lost in though. “I think she was shopping somewhere? She was definitely on her cell phone.”
::
“I was actually here,” Sandy says. “It was my day off, but I’d forgotten a book that I’d bought for my boyfriend, so I came back to get it.”
Jensen stares at her for a moment, watching her face for signs of lying. But she seems to be telling the truth; he’s pretty good at spotting tells. Sometimes it helps to be sure that everyone’s lying to you.
“So the person who poisoned me overheard you talking to me on the phone…here?” Jared asks.
Jensen doesn’t usually allow his clients to accompany him when he’s doing his detective thing. Okay, he never allows them to. Of course, it usually doesn’t come up, since they have other things going on in their lives, which is why they’ve hired him. But Jared had been insistent, saying that he had to help out as much as he can. Jensen had considered telling him he’d only get in the way, but couldn’t bring himself to. For some reason. Which has everything to do with Jared’s impatience, and nothing to do with how hot he is. Jensen’s a professional, after all.
Sandy just shrugs, but Jensen nods with certainty. “That is exactly what happened.” He glances around the bookstore, taking in the couple kneeling by the travel section, the elderly woman browsing the new paperback novels, the young man leading a dog on a leash examining the titles in the gardening section. None of them looks particularly threatening, but Jensen knows better.
Anyone can be dangerous.
A slender dark-haired man approaches them. “What’s going on?” he asks. He’s wearing an employee pin on his blue t-shirt.
“Aaron!” Sandy says. “Someone attacked Jared last time he was here!”
Aaron looks Jared up and down. “He was attacked? He looks okay to me,” he says, doubtfully.
“I was poisoned,” Jared tells him. “Were you here yesterday morning?” Jensen looks over approvingly at Jared. His interrogation technique is simple and direct. Pretty good. For an amateur.
“Yeah,” Aaron says. “I opened yesterday.”
“Did you see anyone suspicious-looking?” Jensen asks. “Maybe hanging around the door?”
Aaron shrugs. “No, it was a pretty ordinary morning.”
“What about Tuesday evening, were you here then?” Jared asks intently. Aaron, who barely reaches Jared’s shoulders, shifts nervously.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Jensen asks, stepping forward, putting himself into Aaron’s space.
“No! I mean, yes, I’m sure! Who are you, anyway? Are you the police?”
Jensen doesn’t answer, just glares down at the kid. He likes it when he makes people nervous. It’s like he’s getting even with the world, just a little bit.
“Well, Mario was here,” Aaron blurts out. “He’s here a lot, so it’s not weird, but he is. Weird, I mean.”
“Like, plays-Dungeons-and-Dragons weird, or stab-someone-with-a-hypodermic-needle-filled-with-poison weird?” Jensen asks.
Aaron shrugs. “I don’t know. He just always creeps me out.”
“Do you know where he lives?” Jared asks.
“No. His last name is Gonzalez, I know that.”
Jared gives Aaron one final glare before taking a step back. “Okay, man,” he says. “Thanks. Bye, Sandy. Come on, Jensen.” He takes hold of Jensen’s left arm and tugs him out of the store.
Outside, Jared holds onto Jensen’s arm a little longer than Jensen thinks is strictly necessary. He watches Jared.
“You sure you even need me, man?” he asks.
Jared looks surprised. “What are you even talking about?”
“You seem to have a good handle on the situation.”
“You’re in charge, dude,” Jared says, raising his hand in protest. “Obviously this is really important to me, so I want to know these things. But I’m trusting you to make sure we’re on the right track.”
Despite the gravity of the situation and his own natural proclivities, Jensen finds himself flashing Jared a grin.
::
There are five Mario Gonzalezes in the city directory, and it doesn’t take long to find the one they’re looking for. He’s the one with the original Star Trek theme playing on his answering machine, which they listen to together on Jared’s cell’s speaker while Jared drives his Jeep slowly out of the parking lot. “Mario is boldly going where no man has gone before!” the message says in a dramatic voice. “He will get back to you at the end of his five year mission. Or whenever he comes home, whichever is first.”
Jensen takes the phone from Jared’s hand and starts to leave a message. “My name is Jensen Ackles and I’m a private detective working for Jared Padalecki. Could Mario Gonzalez please call me back as soon as possible at-“
“HELLO?” comes a loud voice over the speaker. “I’m here! I’m here! This is Mario!”
“Hi Mario,” Jensen says. “If you’re at home, we’re coming over right now. We need to speak to you.”
There’s a brief pause.
“…Okay,” comes the eventual response. He doesn’t sound particularly eager.
Jensen looks up directions to Mario’s address, and navigates Jared there. It turns out to be a small bungalow that could use a fresh coat of paint. The sad weedy lawn wouldn’t be much improved by mowing.
The inside, however, is tidy enough. The walls are covered in posters for Star Wars, Star Trek, and various anime with Japanese writing. Jensen spots a particularly interesting poster on the kitchen wall:
“What do you want?” Mario asks, letting them in but leaving the door open. He’s a tall skinny guy, with black curls that reach his shoulders. He sounds like he’s trying to be tough, but it’s not working very well.
“You know a guy named Aaron? At Marietta’s Books? He told us you said you were hanging around the store yesterday,” Jensen says casually.
“Yeah, Aaron, sure. The bookseller.” Mario looks a little confused.
“You a fan of Ed Wood, Mario?” Jared asks. Mario looks up, surprised, but before he can answer, Jared's phone rings.
“Sorry, Jen, gotta take this. Business is business.” He wanders outside to answer the phone.
Jensen gestures to the poster. “Tell me about Plan Nine,” he says.
“Um,” Mario clears his throat and faces Jensen. “Yeah, it’s cool, right? I mean, it’s terrible, but in a totally amazing way? Actually, that guy Aaron? He freaking loves that movie. He told me he wants to name his future son Ed Wood.”
“Really,” Jensen says flatly.
“He’s like, obsessed with Ed Wood,” Mario continues. “It verges on…scary. He’s told me that he even has an idea for a sequel to Plan Nine, can you believe it?”
::
It turns out that the call was actually from the police. They got a couple of good fingerprints off the script but they don’t match anything in any databases that the police can access.
So Jensen puts in a call to a friend at the FBI.
“Jensen, I’m in the middle of a case right now, so I can’t get to it right now, but I will when I have time. What are the names again?”
“Mario Gonzalez, 2390 W. Montrose, and Aaron Davis, uh…Jared, what was Aaron’s address?”
“5632 N. Wolcott, #4,” Jared reads off a scrap of paper.
“Who’s Jared? You got a partner now?”
“He’s my client, Danneel.”
“You’re letting your client work with you?” She sounds doubtful.
“Thanks a lot for your help, Danneel,” he says. “I’ll talk to you later! Bye!” He ends the call before she can say anything else, and looks up to see Jared watching him, amused.
“Back to Marietta’s?” Jensen asks.
“You’re the boss…partner,” Jared says. He coughs once. And then again. And again. And then he’s coughing uncontrollably, doubled over, his hand over his mouth.
“Jesus, Jared, are you okay?” Jensen’s first instinct is to move toward Jared, but he resists the temptation.
Jared nods, and coughs a couple more times. He stands up, and holds up his palm so Jensen can see. It’s splattered with blood.
“I’m gonna go home,” Jared says. He looks pale and tired. “I’ll drop you off.”
“Okay,” Jensen nods. “See you in the morning?” He feels himself flush at the hopeful tone of his own voice.
“Yeah. In the morning.”
::
Early on Friday they meet up and head back to Marietta’s. Jared is looking better than he had the previous afternoon, but Jensen can see that his spirits are flagging.
“I swear it wasn’t me!” Aaron says before Jensen barely opens his mouth. His yelp attracts the attention of an elderly man browsing in the magazine section.
“Where were you on Wednesday morning?” Jensen asks, threateningly.
“School! Class! I swear, I have a lit class on Wednesday mornings! At Truman!”
Jensen shakes a threatening finger in Aaron’s face. “I am going to check this out. And if I find out that you skipped class, you're going to find out how what I do to people who lie to me. Trust me when I say that you really don't want to be one of those people. So I'm going to give you one last chance to tell the truth: were you in class on Wednesday?”
Aaron nods rapidly. “Yes! I was there!” Jensen hates it when the truth is a dead-end, and he thinks that Aaron probably isn’t lying. Still, it never hurts to make sure.
Back in Jared’s car, Jensen whips out his phone to double-check the story.
“What do you think is going on with these guys?” Jared asks him, leaning against the window. “They don’t really seem like criminal masterminds.”
“Well, they’re definitely idiots. That much I know. The rest, we’ll figure out.”
Jared looks like he’s about to say something. Jensen raises an eyebrow at him.
“What?”
“That was totally awesome,” Jared confesses. “The way you threatened Aaron?”
Jensen snorts.
“Yeah, I rock at threatening people. You sure know how to boost a guy’s ego.”
“It was hot is all I’m saying,” Jared says.
Jensen feels his ears burning. He chances a glance over at Jared, who has pasted an innocent expression on his face.
“I try,” he says, attempting to sound nonchalant, and mostly succeeding. Maybe. Okay, probably not.
It takes twenty minutes for Jensen to figure out that there really is a literature class at Truman College on Wednesday mornings, and another twenty minutes to track down the teacher. She doesn’t keep roll, but says she is positive that Aaron was there.
“Hmm,” Jensen says.
“Not Aaron, then,” Jared says. “But he’s the one with the screenplay.”
“Hmm,” Jensen says again. His phone rings. It’s Danneel. He puts her on speaker. “I ran your check,” she says without preamble. “Jensen, neither of these guys has ever done anything criminal or remarkable in any other way. Mario got a parking ticket once.”
“Shit,” he says. “Um, is there anything else? Anything at all could be helpful.”
“Is Jared there? Hi Jared!”
“Hi Danneel,” Jared says, grinning. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Jared. Jensen, he sounds cute.”
“I’m very cute,” Jared tells her.
“And he doesn’t have a self-confidence issue, does he?” Jensen says grumpily. “Stop flirting and tell me about our guys, Danneel.”
“Well, Aaron works in a bookstore. You already knew that. He’s a student at Truman College, and he graduated from high school two years ago. Mario also went to Truman, but never went on to a four-year school. He works as a legal courier. Before that, he worked as a lab assistant, although it looks like he was at the bottom rung, one step above a janitor.”
“What kind of lab are we talking about here?” Jensen asks.
There’s a pause. “Records don't say, give me a second. Okay, it’s called Thompson Research Laboratory. It receives federal funding, so I have access to its database.” Jensen can hear keys clicking. “Ohhh. He was fired when he was caught stealing from the lab.”
Jared’s already pulling out of the parking space.
::
“Don’t you guys need a warrant or something?” Mario says, as Jensen pushes past him to get into the living room.
“We’re not cops,” Jensen tells him. “We’re just trespassing.”
“I’m gonna call the cops!” Mario yells.
“Okay, Mario, go ahead and do that, save me the time,” Jensen says, annoyed.
“What are-“ Mario begins.
“Where is the antidote, Mario?” Jared interrupts in a low voice.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mario’s voice comes out oddly high, and he looks absolutely terrified. Got him, Jensen thinks. But he can’t afford to wait any longer.
“Mario! Where is the fucking antidote?” Jensen yells at him.
“Antidote to what?”
“He-“ Jensen points at Jared “is going to die because you are such a dumbshit. Do you want to be a murderer, Mario?”
“No…” He looks up at Jared with pleading eyes. “Why won’t you just make the movie? Come on, it’s really good!”
“Ah HA!” Jensen says. “The antidote, Mario. NOW.”
“Fine,” Mario says. “Fine! But it was all Aaron’s idea, I hope you know! It was his fucking screenplay in the first place!” He yanks open the freezer door and pulls out a vial. Jared snags it from him.
“And now I’m calling the cops,” he says. He turns to Jensen. “Jen, I’ve got to go to the hospital, make sure this is the real thing.”
“I’ll come with you,” Jensen offers.
Jared shakes his head. “No, man, stay here and wait for the cops, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” Jensen pauses for a moment. “I’ll come see you in the hospital, though?”
Jared grins at him. “You’d better.” And before Jensen can say anything else, Jared leans down and kisses him, a single soft kiss on the lips. Then he turns and then walks out the door.
Jensen stares after him in a daze.
Mario starts laughing and Jensen spins to glares at him.
“Your face, man!” Mario says between wheezes.
“Yeah, laugh it up now, you idiot.” Jensen mutters. “Not gonna be doing too much laughing when the cops show up, are you?” Mario looks chastened, and Jensen settles back to wait.
::
Jared spends the next couple days in the hospital, where, as it turns out, Jensen does not qualify as an acceptable visitor. So he sends Jensen regular emails from his phone about how his treatment is going. Jensen writes emails back about what’s going on with Mario and Aaron. The two of them, it turns out, planned the entire thing out together, but panic set in after Mario carried out the attack.
Good thing they’re as good at crime as they are at screenwriting, Jared texts.
Jensen laughs and before he can stop himself, he texts back I miss you.
Jared’s response is immediate. Soon.
::
It’s been a week and a half since Jensen met Jared, and he’s sitting in his office again. It’s raining, which reflects Jensen’s mood perfectly. Of course, it’s impossible to be cheery in this damned house anyway. He twirls a pen around, tosses it up in the air and catches it.
“So talented.”
The amused voice is coming from the doorway, and Jensen looks up to see Jared leaning there, watching him.
“Didn’t know you were such a creeper,” Jensen says. “Civilized people knock first, you know.”
“It’s good to see you,” Jared tells him.
“You okay now? You’re going to live?”
“Yup, the antidote worked. I’m back at 100%.”
Jensen closes his eyes in relief. “I’m so glad to hear it, man. Mario and Aaron are both living it up in the county jail, by the way.”
When he opens his eyes, Jared’s smiling at him. “Tell me about this house.”
“What about the house?” Jensen asks, confused by the sudden change in topic.
“When I first met you, you said this house was ruining your life. But it’s really an incredible house. The gardens, the gables, the wood paneling. People don’t build houses like this anymore. How is it ruining your life?”
Jensen sighs. “I inherited this house from my aunt,” he says grudgingly. “And…okay, I have some paranoid tendencies? This house just really scares me. It’s huge and it makes lots of noises and I always think there are other people wandering around.”
“Why don’t you just sell it, then?”
“It’s been in my family for a long time. I can’t just sell it. My dad grew up here, his dad grew up here, his mom grew up here…”
“Will you show it to me?” Jared asks.
“You want to see my spooky house, Jared?” Jensen asks.
“Pretty much ever since the first time I saw it. I’m really interested in checking out the basement, maybe taking a look at the plumbing. I hear the pipes need a lot of attention, you know.” Jared says with a leer. Jensen laughs.
“We still talking about the house, dude?”
“You tell me,” Jared says. He’s still smiling, but he looks a little nervous. Jensen gets up and walks toward him. He takes Jared’s hand, and looks at it for a moment before glancing up. Jared’s so close, and it’s no effort at all to lean over and kiss him.
“Let me show you my house, Jared," Jensen says, and his heart is pounding like crazy but he's never felt so fucking happy. "I’ll show you everything.”
Prompt: Jared's a bookish disheveled filmmaker looking for a cure to the poison coursing through his veins. Jensen's a sarcastic paranoid detective who inherited a spooky stately manor from his late maiden aunt.